Things I've learned in Spain the past few days:

1) Summer colds are NOT caused by air conditioning. In fact, I wish they were. That would mean I have air conditioning.

2) When a man runs up and down your street shrieking and dancing with his pants down, call the Guardia Urbana. They're much quicker than the Mossos D'Esquadra.

3) When someone in Spain says "Um, no sorry, I can't do that," it generally means "Um, no sorry, I don't feel like doing that."

4) When you give your 77 year old next door neighbor a plate of cookies you've made, be prepared to spend a couple hours in her apartment pouring over photos of her distant relatives and the tie-dyed scarves she's made at the old folks home while nodding along like you understand her bizarre strain of catalan/castellano/old lady.

Today, Lauren and I initiated our Gonzo Goodwill Tour. While it may be a few months before our hostel site sees any action, we figure it's never too early to start buttering up the neighbors. One of our biggest fears is that during construction, one of our neighbors denounces us... yes, denounces us. It seems a bit formal and odd but apparently it's very normal for neighbors to file formal complaints against one another with the town hall. This could add yet another layer of red tape and ultimately slow construction and worst of all, opening. So, in order to pre-empt any complaints, we did what any American would- baked cookies! Yes, it's a bit small-time, but Lauren slaved over the oven and today we went door to door to introduce ourselves with a warm smile, a plate of chocolate chips, and a desperate plea of "please, please, please call me before calling in a complaint."

I think our mission had the desired effect. The neighbors seemed surprised and impressed by the gesture and at the very least, we'll have faces to go along with the nasty phone calls we get.

We just experienced our first Barcelona blackout. Surprisingly it was business as usual on the streets. Everyone pretty much took it in stride. Someone sold us chicken that had been sitting out for a few hours. Our fruit guy quipped that "of course, it's July! God's on vacation. He's too busy to turn the lights back on." No one panicked, complained or really seemed to care. It was kind of refreshing.

And just cause these are funny...

We hung our "coming soon" sign on the building today. We're not sure what the neighbors' reaction is going to be, so we're (i'm) spending the weekend making chocolate chip cookies to butter them up with when we introduce ourselves next week.

We visited the site with Paul (our architect) today. He actually knocked a hole through a wall. So there's no turning back now.

Contract signed! Keys in hand. Somnio Hostels flagship location is officially Calle Diputacio 251. See the map below.

We celebrated with some 10am cava and a brownie. We had some strange stares and a couple passerbys congratulate us for whatever we were celebrating. Now the real fun begins!
Um, now where do we buy beds??

We're still working on our website, but take a look here www.somniohostels.com/somnio

Any comments or thoughts would be great!

Back from Pamplona! Just doing some research on what to recommend to guests of course. Definitely not just a pleasure trip. Although we did manage to sneak in some fun. Props to our friends Andrew and Dalen who actually ran with the bulls, while some of us just watched from the sidelines and tried to get good pictures of the gorings. Lee and I were lucky (?) to score spots right at a turn on the route that led to a massive pileup of fallen runners that the bulls (with great ease) just completely trampled right over. You can see it on video here. I think it's around 0:54. The rest of the weekend consisted of a very rowdy bull fight, matching outfits, avoiding wine being thrown around, gingerly stepping over sleeping partiers and puddles of unidentifiable liquids, and general carousing.

In other news, we're very very close to signing our lease. The lawyer has a few very minor points to iron out before we can pop the bubbly. I'm still a little apprehensive to celebrate just yet, but hopefully everything will go smoothly. Dedos cruzados.

In the continuing effort to ingratiate ourselves with Barcelona society, Lee and I attended not one, but two very very Catalan parties last Thursday. The first was a local hotel chain's annual party. Poolside cava, jamon serrano, fideuo, and, of course, a Beatles cover band to give it the real Spanish feel. Our host was terrific about introducing us to all sorts of helpful travel agency types. I guess the party continues downstairs to their meeting rooms turned disco for the night. Sadly we had to cut the fun short to make it to the next party in time, but it was worth it.

Our friends Amy and Ivan invited us to the College of Architects annual party. I guess it's the season for that kind of thing! The party was hosted in the castle on top of Montjuic. It has terrific views of the Mediterranean and the entire city. Apparently visiting the castle at night is a rare treat. It was indeed gorgeous. Unfortunately Lee and I opted for fashion over photo-ops so neither of us could shove a camera into our small clutches. We sipped more cava and ate some coca (spanish coffee cake). They provided us with cardboard forms that you could supposedly magically fold into stools to sit on to enjoy the live jazz and the vistas. Not being terribly architectually inclined myself, I wound up on the ground on my first attempt at a stool. By the time we figured it out, we managed to steal enough real chairs. But in true American fashion, we were the first on the dance floor once the DJ started. Someone had to show the locals the authentic moves from Thriller! I'm not sure people knew what to make of us, but it was an excellent night.